About Swoon
Swoon, a boutique fine art gallery, was born from the desire to create an inspirational space where art, antiques and design are intertwined, and carefully curated selections of artwork, photography and sculpture are showcased in unique and innovative ways.
Swoon invites you to explore art in an intimate setting amongst flowers, books, antiques and accessories much as you would find in a real home.
Owner Sue Appleton-Webster brings to Swoon over 20 years experience in the art and design business worlds and offers a fresh approach to the way in which art is viewed and displayed. Her style is uniquely unpretentious and as a result her gallery suits a wide variety of budgets and tastes.
Swoon offers unparalleled personalized services to help you select the perfect piece including art consultation, measure ups and art approvals.
Clients include first time buyers, interior designers, and seasoned art collectors. Works sold through Swoon have appeared in publications such as Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Town and Country, Luxe, New England Home, Venu, Cottages and Gardens, At Home, and Westport Lifestyle. The gallery is located in Westport, Connecticut,
Swoon is honored to be invited to participate in Rooms With a View for the second year running and the gallery will be showcasing the work of seven represented artists.
Meet the artists
LAUREEN VELLANTE
Beginning her career as an agent for top modeling agencies in New York City, Laureen was deeply influenced by the many photography masters she worked alongside. Inspired by their artistry, and self taught, she began taking photography courses, built a darkroom in her basement, and began working for newspapers. Her assignments spanned topics from breaking news to sports to local events.
Today, Laureen creates impressionistic seascapes that capture the ocean through an abstract lens. After years in journalism, where clarity and realism were essential, she chose to move in a different direction—exploring the ocean as both subject and metaphor. Through her work, she translates its shifting moods into impressionistic photographs.
A firsthand encounter with Hurricane Sandy became a turning point, compelling her to reflect on how something so serene could transform into a force of destruction. Since then, she has traveled extensively along the coastline in every season and condition, photographing everything from violent hurricanes to moments of perfect calm.
Laureen is drawn to the ocean’s dual nature—its ability to be tranquil yet ferocious, fluid yet still. Her images embody this tension, embracing both beauty and rupture, permanence and change. Laureen's work is exhibited at Swoon in Westport, CT and design stores along the East Coast.
ALICIA GITLITZ
Alicia Gitlitz is an award-winning abstract expressionist whose vibrant work is exhibited in galleries across the tri-state area. She uses color as her primary language of expression, drawing deeply from the natural world—her travels, hikes through the outdoors, and quiet observations of beauty in everyday landscapes. For Alicia, nature is not just inspiration but her very soul, resonating through every painting.
Her process is raw, intuitive, and layered. Working on unprimed canvas, she embraces materials such as paint, drips, pigment sticks, tempera markers, and other mixed media to build texture, movement, and emotional depth. Each work becomes an exploration of energy and freedom, inviting viewers to feel rather than simply observe.
Through her art, Alicia channels the boundless spirit of nature into color and form, creating pieces that celebrate freedom, movement, and the profound connection between the human spirit and the natural world. Alicia's artwork has been represented by Swoon in Westport since 2017.
KAREN DOW
Karen is a printmaker and teacher who has been living and working in CT for the last 25 years. Graduating from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in 1998, Karen decided to make CT her home base when she began teaching Color and Design at Southern CT State University. This experience solidified her passion for this area of expression and most notably her study of both Josef and Anni Albers. While at Yale, she began experimenting with Printmaking and how the techniques she was learning could be combined and played with. Her focus and passion for this medium and all the graphic possibilities of woodcut, monoprint and etching have continued to be her primary modes of expression.
Her abstract prints draw on reflections of domesticity, interior spaces, relationships and memory. Each print is one of a kind, where process, color, and mark-making all play an integral role. She often paints on top of her prints with gouache to accentuate or draw the eye to certain areas. Her desire is to create meaning and a sense of place where color and mark-making coalesce to create beautiful and intuitively balanced compositions. Karen has shown her work extensively throughout New England, New York and Europe. She enjoys traveling for inspiration and loves collaborating with other artists and designers. She works in her studio in New Haven and continues to love teaching in the CT area and abroad. Karen's work is currently exhibited by Swoon in Westport.
YVONNE CLAVELOUX
Abstract artist, Yvonne Claveloux merges vibrant colors and organic shapes to create a sense of energy in her work. She embraces beauty in imperfection through her uninhibited brush strokes, loose lines, drips, and smudges, all bursting on her canvasses in harmony.
Her style is instinctive, which always leads to new and unexpected adventures when she steps into the studio. Always beginning her paintings without a plan, she uses diverse mediums including chalk, acrylics, watercolors and gesso, allowing each piece to develop their own personality.
“Inspiration for my art derives from my travels, Cuban roots and colorful winters in Miami. I use paint as a way to express emotions that cannot be verbalized and strive to celebrate beauty, flaws and all.”
She paints from her home studios in Westport, CT and Miami, FL and exhibits her work in several galleries and interior design stores on the East Coast. In Fairfield county Swoon Gallery has represented Yvonne's work since 2017.
CHARLIE LEAL
Charlie was born in California and is a multifaceted artist and Art Center College of Design graduate that majored in Illustration and Fine Art. He spent the first fifteen years of his career designing and art directing a large catalogue of mainstream music videos, high profile television commercials and movies.
While making his work, Charlie is mainly concerned with formal painting qualities. Unique graphic forms, color interaction, atmosphere and the application of mediums illustrate a story. The comingling of techniques describes a powerful synergy between the artist’s hand and the viewer’s experience. Many of his works express themes derived from the duality of both catastrophe and beauty.
Charlie’s background in Art Direction informs his love of collaboration with designers to consider a shared vision of home. His work is currently being exhibited at Swoon in Westport.
CATHERINE DEVINE
Catherine Prager Devine is a New York City born artist, shaped by a childhood immersed in creativity. Grounded in modernist design and a restrained, neutral palette, her mixed-media abstraction, often in plaster, crushed quartz and sand, pair geometry with texture to explore both balance and quiet. Her work sustains a dialogue between the structural rhythm of the city and the pace of coastal Connecticut. It is a tribute to the places and people who formed her, and an evolving practice carried forward alongside her husband, two children, and their standard poodle, Henry. Catherine has been represented by Swoon Gallery since 2022.
Danielle DeCola
Danielle DeCola is a Connecticut-based artist who was born and raised in North Branford. Her love of drawing and painting from a young age led her to pursue a BFA from Paier College of Art in Hamden, Conn. Although, she works in several different mediums, Danielle’s true passion is watercolors.
Her love of nature and the ocean inspired her landscape paintings. Danielle’s early work was highly detailed and realistic and she often worked from photo references. As time went on, she came to realize the beauty in simplicity and abstraction. Applying uncomplicated shapes with muted colors to her paintings provide a quiet elegance to nature that is sometimes overlooked. The looseness watercolors allow her to achieve this quality in her paintings.
Her art is currently being sold at Swoon in Westport where it has become popular with local interior designers. Her paintings are hanging in homes throughout the country. Previously, she has shown her art at Hamden Art League, Connecticut Pastel Society, River Street Gallery, and Erector Square. Danielle’s work has been published in Luxe Magazine and Architectural Digest.
Danielle works from her studio in New Haven at Erector Square. In addition to her art, She has also been a professional picture framer for over 25 years. She resides in North Branford with her husband, and three sons.